Osprey: Time to Fly – Today, July 29th, 2016

Above, Mom (left) sternly begins coaxing the kid to leave the nest, and fly. It happens every year. The mother will fly around the nest, carrying a fish in its claws, sometimes for days at a time, until the young one finally gets the idea – to eat, you must fly! The wordless lesson is priority one.

Meanwhile, Dad waits patiently a few hundred yards way.

As Usual, click on images for higher resolution, and comments are always welcome. M 🙂

7 thoughts on “Osprey: Time to Fly – Today, July 29th, 2016”

I am curious to know if the young return to live in the basement of their parents after getting a degree in The Art of Catching Shrimp or the equivalent of human degrees that prevents them from being self-sufficient.

Hmm . . . my comment refers to the stated distance between the nest and the dad. The way it’s worded, the dad is 200 yards from the nest in the foreground. Based on the relative size of the foreground birds versus the bird in the distance, it seems a lot closer to me, but I’ll take your word for it.

I love these kinds analysis… From a distance map, the approx distance from me (at the nearest road, to the nest) was ~ 40 yds (120’) and between the nest and the dad, 167 yds (500’.) Not sure how to included a snapshot of the map here, but in due time I’ll paste it on a subsequent post. I was using a 600 mm lens with the shot, and like at said, at f/40, it may distort the perceived distances a bit
About the young, (this is interesting…) The parents mate for life, and after migrating (separately) to South America (usually in September from coastal NJ,) they return to the same nest to do it all over again in the spring. The offspring stay in the nest for a few weeks after the parents leave then also fly to SA, (not to their parents) and remain there for 2 years. On their return, the never return to the birth nest, but come usually within 100 miles of that nest, finding or building their own.
So, just about 5
weeks from now the parents and young will never see each other again.

I used words to describe the symbols because in the past it used to not show them, taking them as HTML codes. I usually upload whatever photo I want to use to the WordPress gallery and that’s the link I use.

However, if you have an image on the web, you can just copy and paste the link, and it will insert the photos. They used to not allow that fearing people would abuse it by posting photos on other people’s blogs. For example:

As for the birds, I actually knew that I’ve visited a couple of Osprey nesting sites while in Colorado. I was just making a joke . . . as usual, it fell flat.

There is some question as to whether the pair mate for life. Yes, they both come back to the nest, but I’ve read it’s more a matter of territoriality than actual pair bonding. That’s why the young do not return to the same nest; they look to find their own territory, but it’s usually in the same area (but yes, large area).

I like the birds and I’ve come to like eagles and owls a bit less once I read they prey on Ospreys.

600mm lens, eh? I’ve been looking at them, but am hesitant. Also, f/40? How do you get enough light with such a small aperture?

Ok, the week-end people have left. Whew! Back to the fun stuff… Not sure if this link will work, but it’s a first attempt. Let me know.
/Users/mschulze/Desktop/Screen Shot 2016-07-31 at 3.53.53 PM.png
And the closest thing I ever came to coding was Fortran about a million yrs ago. I envy your talents.
Other things:
–> “Flat Jokes” are always welcomed, sometimes generating a little smile, sometimes a big smile, sometimes a “huh!” No matter – love it all!
–>The concept of territorial nest sharing is certainly plausible, as opposed to the romantically inclined theory of Osprey wanting to snuggle up with the same old bird!
–>The lens is fun, simply said. 150-600 Tamron, image stabilization, with a nice reach. price is not cheap, but about 1/10 of what a NIKON PRIME would be, although I recently saw a Nikon 300 – 500, f 5.6 just slightly above the Tamron price. I don’t know the details of that, as I’m very satisfied with the Tamron, and not shopping. M ☺

In my persuit of being anal, I succeeded at getting an image into a comment here, which also lets me complete a self-induced challange to determine the distance to the “DAD,” and show how I did it. No applause is necessary! M 🙂
The Green pin is the Osprey nest, and the Red pin is where the “Dad” was located. I was on the road at the top of the frame, and Barnegat Bay is at the bottom.